Rapid transition in sexual behaviors during protogynous sex change in the haremic angelfish Centropyge vroliki (Pomacanthidae) (original) (raw)

Abstract

We conducted male-removal experiments in harems of the protogynous angelfish Centropyge vroliki on the coral reefs of Okinawa. The largest female of a harem started male role sexual behavior on the day of male removal and started to spawn with smaller females from 1–3 days after the removal. Smaller females often spawned with the sex changer, although the eggs released in the spawning events were unfertilized until the completion of the gonadal sex change (ca. 2 weeks). The largest female could completely perform male sexual behavior before the completion of the sex change. We observed that a smaller female with which the sex changer rarely spawned left the harem to perform extraharem spawning. This observation suggested that sexual behavior by the sex changer may function to secure future mates. Behavioral sex change may commonly precede the gonadal sex change in protogynous fish.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kyushu International University, Kitakyushu, Japan, , , , , , JP
    Yoichi Sakai
  2. Department of Environmental Sciences, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Ibaraki University, Mito, Japan, , , , , , JP
    Chihiro Tsujimura & Yukari Nakata
  3. Department of Chemistry, Biology and Marine Science, Graduate School of Engineering and Science, University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan, , , , , , JP
    Hisayo Tanabe & Go Maejima

Authors

  1. Yoichi Sakai
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  2. Chihiro Tsujimura
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  3. Yukari Nakata
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  4. Hisayo Tanabe
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  5. Go Maejima
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Additional information

Received: April 11, 2002 / Revised: August 24, 2002 / Accepted: September 6, 2002

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ID="*"Present address: Department of Bioresources Science and Technology, Graduate School of Biosphere Science, Hiroshima University, 1-4-4 Kagamiyama, Higashi-Hiroshima 739-8528, Japan (e-mail: sakai41@hiroshima-u.ac.jp)

Acknowledgments We are grateful to Drs. K. Karino, T. Kuwamura, and Y. Nakashima for their support of the study and their critical reading of the manuscript. Dr. K. Sakai and the staff of the Sesoko Station of the Tropical Biosphere Research Center (STRC) kindly provided facilities for the fieldwork. We thank the students of the Summer Class of STRC in 1999 for their help in the preliminary field investigation. This work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research to Y.S. (#12740429) from the Japan Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture. Our experiments complied with the current laws of Japan. This article is a contribution from STRC.

_Correspondence to:_Yoichi Sakai

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Sakai, Y., Tsujimura, C., Nakata, Y. et al. Rapid transition in sexual behaviors during protogynous sex change in the haremic angelfish Centropyge vroliki (Pomacanthidae).Ichthyol Res 50, 0030–0035 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s102280300004

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